John Klima, the editor of the Hugo-Award winning magazine Electric Velocipede, has announced that issue #21/22 will be the final print issue:

After much discussion, I’ve decided to dissolve my partnership with Night Shade Books. Our final issue together is issue #21/22, which went to the printer in November. It should be arriving at the Night Shade offices soon and be shipping out any time now. Please watch here for more details.

While Night Shade has done a good job in supporting the magazine from a production standpoint, they are not in the business of periodicals and as such our subscription numbers and individual sales have suffered to the point that it made no sense to continue with our current model. Night Shade wants to focus its energies on its core business of publishing and selling books….

Night Shade has graciously offered to pay the contributors whose work I had accepted for publication in the coming year as Electric Velocipede issues #23 – 25. After some discussion with the contributors, we are going to post the content of these issues online for the readers and fans of Electric Velocipede. We’re still working out the logistics on our side for how that will happen, so you’ll have to watch here for the final details. If this works as planned, the magazine will be completely online in 2012, opening for submissions towards the end of 2011.

Electric Velocipede is one of the finest small press genre magazines on the market.  It has published work by Jay Lake, Jeff VanderMeer, Neal Barrett, Jr, Paul DiFilippo, Liz Williams, Charles Coleman Finlay, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Tobias Buckell, Catherynne M. Valente, Marie Brennan, and many others.  It won the Hugo Award for best fanzine in 2009, and has been a four-time World Fantasy Award nominee.

Issue 21/22, a big double issue, contains fiction from William Shunn, Shannon Page and Jay Lake, Shira Lipkin, Jenna Waterford, Michaela Roessner, and many others. It is available for $12 directly on the website.

The complete announcement is here.